The pitying heart that felt for human wo; The dauntless heart that feared no human pride; 'For even his failings leaned to virtue's side.'1 The poet also expressed his feelings on this melancholy occasion in a letter to Mr Burness of Montrose :: LOCHLEA, 17th February 1784. DEAR COUSIN-I would have returned you my thanks for your kind favour of the 13th of December sooner, had it not been that I waited to give you an account of that melancholy event which, for some time past, we have from day to day expected. On the 13th current I lost the best of fathers. Though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke, still the feelings of nature claim their part, and I cannot recollect the tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of friends and ablest of instructors, without feeling what perhaps the calmer dictates of reason would partly condemn. I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their connection in this place die with him. For my part I shall ever with pleasure, with pride, acknowledge my connection with those who were allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory I shall ever honour and revere. I expect, therefore, my dear sir, you will not neglect any opportunity of letting me hear from you, which will very much oblige, my dear cousin, yours sincerely, 1 Goldsmith. R. B. MOSS GIEL. 1784-1786. As a refuge for the family in case of the Lochlea landlord proceeding to extremities, Burns and his brother had engaged, at Martinmas 1783, another farm, only two or three miles distant from Lochlea, but in a different parish (Mauchline). This was the MOSSGIEL which has become connected with so many of the most noted facts in his history. It consisted of 118 acres of cold. clayey soil, lying in a bare upland, little more than a mile from the village of Mauchline. It was only by ranking as creditors of their father, for the arrears of wages due on account of their respective labours, that the two sons and two grown daughters of the late William Burness rescued from the grip of the law any portion of their Lochlea stocking wherewith to recommence business in this new situation. They set about this duty with renewed resolutions of unsparing exertion and unsparing selfdenial; and if circumstances had been at all favourable, they might have had little to complain of. The poet says, in his autobiographical memoir : I entered on this farm with a full resolution, Come, go to, I will be wise! I read farming-books-I calculated crops-I attended markets and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second, from a late harvest, we lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire. The last extract from the letter of Gilbert Burns regarding his brother's life broke off with an affirmation of the sobriety of the poet's habits in his earlier years. He goes on thus: 'A stronger proof of the general sobriety of his conduct need not be required than what I am about to give. During the whole of the time we lived in the farm of Lochlea with my father, he allowed my brother and me such wages for our labour as he gave to other labourers, as a part of which, every article of our clothing, manufactured in the family, was regularly accounted for. When my father's affairs drew near a crisis, Robert and I took the farm of Mossgiel, consisting of 118 acres, at the rent of £90 per annum (the farm on which I live at present), from Mr Gavin Hamilton, as an asylum for the family in case of the worst. It was stocked by the property and individual savings of the whole family, and was a joint concern among us. Every member of the family was allowed ordinary wages for the labour he performed on the farm. My brother's allowance and mine was £7 per annum each. And during the whole time this family concern lasted, which was for four years, as well as during the preceding period at Lochlea, his expenses never in any one year exceeded his slender income. As I was intrusted with the keeping of the family accounts, it is not possible that there can be any fallacy in this statement in my brother's favour. His temperance and frugality were everything that could be wished.' The two brothers entered upon their farm of Mossgiel for the crop of 1784, commencing their residence there in March. The steading furnished a neater residence for the family than they had ever before enjoyed, for it had been built to serve as a sort of country retreat for the family of Mr Gavin Hamilton, writer in Mauchline, who, as first tenant from the proprietor, the Earl of Loudoun, had sublet the farm to Burns. We have the poet's own declaration, that he was now truly anxious to do well in the world. He says: I read farming-books-I calculated crops-I attended markets.' 'Come, go to,' he cried, 'I will be wise.' Allan Cunningham speaks with knowledge on this part of the poet's history. 'Burns,' he says, 'was attentive as far as ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing, winnowing, and selling went: he did all this by a sort of mechanical impulse; but success in farming demands more. The farmer should know what is doing in his way in the world around; he must learn to anticipate demand; and, in short, to time everything. But he who pens an ode on his sheep when he should be driving them forth to pasture -who sees visions on his way home from market, and makes rhymes on them-who writes an ode on the horse he is about to yoke, and a ballad on the girl who shews the brightest eyes among his reapers-has no chance of ever growing opulent, or of purchasing the field on which he toils.' Gilbert was cast in a more worldly mould than his gifted brother, and he took immediate charge of everything; for Robert, it is said, when addressed about a business-matter, always turned it off with, 'Oh, talk to my brother about that.' But neither does it appear that Gilbert, though a sagacious and upright man, was a good farmer. A landlord, it must be admitted, is apt to take derogatory views of an unsuccessful tenant; but yet it is significant that Mr Alexander, subsequently proprietor of Mossgiel, used to speak of Gilbert as more a man of theory than of practical address and activity. It is not, therefore, surprising that this new speculation of the poet proved no more fortunate than any of its predecessors. Dr Currie gives a curious illustration of the causes of Burns's failure as a man of the world. At the time,' he says, 'that our poct took the resolution of becoming wise, he procured a little book of blank paper, with the purpose, expressed on the first page, of making farming-memorandums. These farming-memorandums are curious enough, and a specimen may gratify the reader.' He then presents the following snatches of verse:1 EXTEMPORE. Oh why the deuce should I repine, I gat some gear wi' mickle care, But now it's gane, and something mair- Oh leave novels, ye Mauchline belles, Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung, "Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel. . In the course of the summer 1781, the health of the poet gave way to a serious extent. The movements of the heart were affected, and he became liable to fainting fits, particularly in the night-time. As a remedy, he was obliged to have recourse to the cold-bath. A barrel of water stood near his bedside, and into this he was obliged to plunge when threatened with an access of 1 The date, April 1782, is prefixed to the extempore verses by Currie, but perhaps only under a presumption arising from the time of life indicated. Or it may be that Burns started his memorandum-book not exactly at the time of this particular resolution his ailment. At the same time, an overconfiding maiden was about to afford proof of the extent to which his father's fears were just-the only consolation in the case being, that that excellent man had gone where goodness no longer suffers for the guilt of those it loves. The youthful bard, feeling that death hovered over him, and reflecting with compunction on the errors partly involved in the cause of his malady, was for a time under very serious impressions. He at this time wrote what he calls in his Commonplace-book a Prayer when fainting fits and other alarming symptoms of a pleurisy, or some other dangerous disorder which still threatens me, first put nature on the alarm.' It was subsequently published under the more simple name of A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. Oh thou unknown, Almighty Cause In whose dread presence, ere an hour, If I have wandered in those paths Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me Where human weakness has come short, Do thou, All-good! for such thou art, Where with intention I have erred, But, Thou art good; and goodness still He also wrote STANZAS ON THE SAME OCCASION. Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene? |